Live proud podcast Ep.7: What nobody tells you before you buy your first home

• Realistic expectations over the ‘forever home’: Entering the property market begins with acknowledging your borrowing capacity and buying what is sensible and achievable today — such as a well-located apartment — as a stepping stone rather than waiting for an out-of-reach dream house.
• Debt clearance and disciplined budgeting: Paying off existing consumer debts and credit cards is essential before applying for finance. Establishing clear spreadsheets and tracking daily expenses turns overwhelming mortgage figures into manageable, bite-sized targets.
• Creative deposit savings strategies: Living off one income, bringing in a flatmate to offset rental costs, curbing discretionary spending like regular food delivery, and temporarily living with family enabled saving $230,000 over three years on average salaries.
• Sustainable lifestyle balance: Avoiding burnout requires budgeting for planned rewards — such as domestic micro-breaks and regular treat nights — proving that long-term financial discipline does not mean completely giving up living.
• Off-the-plan due diligence: Visiting multiple display suites with a clear list of non-negotiables, such as dedicated work-from-home space, parking, and functional layouts, and partnering with reputable developers helps buyers confidently visualise and secure new-build properties.
• Leveraging developer payment structures: Taking advantage of structured deposit payment plans allows buyers to spread initial costs over the construction phase, making entry into the market significantly more accessible.
• Financial pressure-testing: Utilising government resources like the MoneySmart website and stress-testing loan repayments against potential interest rate increases of up to 10% builds confidence and ensures financial resilience.
• Controlling the controllables: Rather than trying to time unpredictable macroeconomic cycles or listening to market noise, the best time to buy is when personal finances, research, and due diligence align.
• The stepping-stone property mindset: Successfully purchasing a first home builds long-term equity and financial confidence, creating a launchpad for future property investment.

Brent: Welcome to the Live proud podcast. I'm Brent Hill. 50 years ago, the average first home buyer in Australia was 24 years old. Today, they're 41. That shift tells you something about how much harder it has become to get into the market, but it doesn't tell you much about how people are actually doing it. My guests today are Drew and Warren, a couple who bought their first apartment in Midtown Mac Park in 2021, after some hard, disciplined sacrifices and savings, and who have since gone from first home buyers to property investors in under five years. Their story is full of practical lessons, but the one that stood out to me most was this: at every turning point, the thing that moved them forward wasn't more money, it was actually better information. Welcome to the podcast, Drew and Warren.

Thank you both for joining us. There's a lot to unpack here — it's been quite a journey for you, particularly navigating your way to buying your first home, some pretty significant sacrifices you made to save for a deposit, and then eventually the knowledge that let you make the right choices moving forward. So, Drew, I'd like to start with you. Can you take me back to — was it COVID, 2020, when you first started looking at buying a house?

Drew: Yes, about 2020, 2021. So, like most of the world, we had our grand plans of going overseas, doing a massive holiday, and that was pretty much trashed.

Brent: Put on ice.

Drew: It was all put on ice, and then we got talking about potentially buying our own home.

Brent: You were renting together at the time?

Drew: Yes, we were renting together — and we'd been renting for many, many years, in different parts, both when we were together and when we were single, before we knew each other. We had a look around and thought, well, do we want to rent for the rest of our lives, or do we want to do something about this? So we started off with the odd question, wondering what we could do, and then decided, hey, let's just go and have a look at things like off-the-plan apartments. We were thinking of established, but we ended up not going down that path. We stuck with off-the-plan because we wanted new — something that was our own, not something that had been lived in and possibly had a lot of problems attached to it. So we wanted our own place.

Brent: Yeah. So you made a conscious decision — okay, we're going to bite the bullet and buy our own home. Now, Warren, does it start with budget? Do you all of a sudden go, we want to buy, but how much have we got, and what does that get us?

Warren: A good spreadsheet. It has to start with a good spreadsheet.

Brent: Okay, can you explain a bit about the process you guys went through when you finally said, okay, we're going to buy a home?

Warren: We were on a pretty average income. We're nothing special — not millionaires by any —

Brent: Hate to probe, but what were your occupations during that time, and circa income-wise?

Drew: Well, I was a TV producer, barely earning $75k a year on a freelance basis. There were weeks where I might have reduced shifts, so it wasn't stable.

Brent: So a modest income for yourself, Drew.

Warren: And I was probably just a touch more. I started in travel — was working in travel — and then flipped back to teaching, which I'm still in now. So, a little bit more than that, but not much. Pretty average.

Brent: Yeah. Okay. Because some people think you need to be millionaires to buy a property. So these were modest incomes that you were both on at the time. You made some decisions about career to potentially get a bit more income, but also, I think, some really good disciplines as far as savings were concerned. As much as I say COVID made us not shop, not travel, not do anything — can you explain a little bit about that?

Warren: And before I left travel, there was actually a holiday to New York that was going to happen, and — [There goes half the deposit.] There goes half the deposit, which would have been really good. No, when we finally bit the bullet, we did a lot of driving around. We tried to decide whether it was going to be Melbourne — because you're obviously originally from Victoria, and I've always been a Sydneysider — so we were trying to decide where to go first.

Brent: So it was budget first. [Yep.] Then it was location.

Warren: Yeah, because budget would therefore also determine location — where we were going in Sydney. So it wasn't going to be the heights of Mosman or anything like that. It was more going to be a sensible apartment. Be realistic. We had to put it into perspective.

Brent: And I think, talking to you guys previously, you were always very realistic about making that first step. You weren't going to buy the forever home, the trophy home in Vaucluse. It was about what can we afford, what's our borrowing capacity, what can we afford to pay off, and how can we get on a really distinctive savings plan in order to get a deposit. And then, what are the opportunities after that? The advice — speaking with a lot of different people — was critical for yourselves, whether it's finance or property specialists, in becoming off-the-plan buyers and making those right decisions. So again, Drew —

Drew: Look, honestly, for me — I always saw property, before we bought, as, I don't think this is going to happen. I wasn't very confident initially. It wasn't until we started getting out there and asking the questions, and finding out the cost of the properties themselves. Initially we were looking at something like a one-bed apartment, because we just wanted to be very modest. Don't get the expectations, don't put them too high. There's a lot of people I know who'd be looking for the four-bedroom home with the wine cellar and the spa and the pool and all the bits and pieces. That wasn't —

Brent: Maybe stay within your means is what you're trying to tell our listeners.

Drew: Exactly. Yeah. It certainly wasn't what we were looking for. So we wanted to be sensible about this. And when we got talking to some salespeople, including Frasers, we discovered that it was a realistic thing — but it just wasn't going to happen overnight. This was going to be the long game, so we had to make that decision to sacrifice two to three years of our life, essentially. So things like Uber Eats had to be a no. But we got creative — you get the things you end up doing in the kitchen, teaching yourself how to cook a bit better, and you can actually do a pretty good job.

Brent: So did you write down a budget, Warren?

Warren: No.

Brent: You had a clear budget on a spreadsheet, and you said, okay, we're going to get really clear with what we're spending and where we're going to save money.

Drew: Sorry, can I make it clear that I was actually the budgeter before we started this. And then I cleaned up your storage shed that you were paying way too much for, and all of a sudden you discovered, yes, I can do it — and you got the confidence to do it.

Warren: And I think, for me, it was a six-month process before we put a deposit down. It's really tricky, when you're buying off the plan, to visualise what you're actually going to walk into. So it would have been 20 or 30 different places that we went to. Walk in, walk around it, come back out. Okay — look at the plans, how does this work?

Brent: Did you have a selection criteria? Did you go in with, these are some of the non-negotiables for what we're after, and these would be nice to have? Was there something as prescriptive as that?

Warren: Having a car space was definitely important. And having space for us — I think COVID really changed our perspective on what we wanted. Because if you weren't going out, then you needed to have the study, or the extra work-from-home space, all those kinds of things. So it definitely evolved. The more that we spoke and the more we saw, it really went, okay, no, we don't like that. And we'd also lived in enough rentals over the years — you don't want a corner kitchen, it's a waste of space, where you can't reach things and you can't —

Brent: So you're looking for functionality and practicality, how you guys could live — and also work now, and play, I suppose. You look at that as an extension of your lifestyle.

Warren: We saw it as an investment, I think. And this property might not be the forever property — as you said — but this is one we're not going to sell. There's no point in selling it.

Brent: So this is the lily pad that you're jumping on the first time, and then you'll jump — which we'll get to later. Warren, you touched on looking at about 30 properties. What was that experience like? I'm sure there were different salespeople and developers. Could you talk through some of the good experiences, and maybe some of the not-so-good experiences?

Warren: The friends and family were kind of like, “What are you doing this week? Oh, you're going looking at apartments again. Okay, cool, off you go.” We needed to work out location first, I think, above anything else. For me, being the Sydneysider who's always lived one side of the bridge, I knew most areas. But even then, I went, okay, we need to actually go and visit a place. And you know, when you buy an established home, you go and visit it at random times of the day, so you can hear the noises and what's happening. So we went back to a couple of places a few times, kind of like, oh okay, that's got merit. We wrote a list — you've got to write it down, because you're going to forget what you like and what you don't like. And once we'd worked out location, or got a rough idea about what we wanted in a location, we were then able to start looking. Okay, do we want one bedroom? Do we want two bedroom? Can we afford two bedroom? Depending on the space and the location, does it have the car space? What does it include? What does it not include? So, really, a pros and cons. We needed to go, yeah, this is great, this is not great.

Brent: And I think that's great advice — to write it down and be really prescriptive about what you're wanting and potentially what you don't want, having your non-negotiables but also your nice-to-haves. And we keep going back to budget: budget dictated by location, and location dictated the amenity. Originally it was a one bedroom, and then you looked at it and could afford a two bedroom.

Warren: Well, when we got to meet Frasers — the first place, because we did go to Frasers once at the very beginning, that was one of the first places we looked at. [You went on your own.] I went on my own, and I was like, no, skip that. Six months later, came back, met Michelle, obviously.

Brent: Yes. Can you tell us about the experience you had there?

Warren: You go for that one.

Drew: Well, for me — I find it hard, sometimes, to trust salespeople. No offence to any salespeople out there, but you've got to build that rapport. And I found with Michelle, she was just upfront, straight to the point: this is what you're getting yourself into, this is what you need to know. I always felt that I wasn't being taken for a ride, if you want to put it that way.

Brent: Do you feel that she was educating you along the way? [Yes.] Like there's probably things you didn't know about — you thought, okay, we're actually getting educated, and we didn't actually know some of these steps or processes, or what to expect.

Drew: That's exactly right. Everything from choosing the powerpoints to all the other bits and bobs with the apartment — but more so, the one thing we weren't aware of was that we could do a kind of payment plan that you guys offered at the time. It's things like that, that people sometimes aren't aware of — that developers aren't there just to take your money and run. Some of them are there to actually help you get into the market, and you've just got to ask the right questions. It makes the difference between being able to afford something and not. It turned a mountain into a little molehill for us when it came to the deposit. It was manageable. It was something we were able to do. We did the sums, of course — you can't just go in and say, “Oh yes, we're going to do that,” without even thinking about it. We went home for a week, took our wage the way it was, and went, okay, in order to meet this, we need to save this amount of money per week. Is it possible? Can we do this? And it turned out that we could.

Brent: Yeah, brilliant.

Drew: Yeah, and that was the start. We're like, we can actually do this now. We don't have to wait five years.

Brent: Sounded too easy.

Drew: Yeah, it sounded too easy — but there was a lot of work involved.

Warren: We really — when you put it down on paper, you could then work out, when you negotiate with whoever you're with... and we negotiated and said, okay, we're not going to do that for a few months, or we can do that every other week, or something like that. When it's written down, it's just easy. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no — that kind of thing.

Brent: Again, it sounds really smart to me. And maybe that's a bit of advice for the listeners: write it down, and speak with a finance broker to work out your budget. One thing is getting a borrowing capacity — what you can borrow — but I think the second part is what you can actually afford. You might be able to borrow $1m, but you can only afford to service $800,000, because your lifestyle might be a bit excessive.

Drew: I'll give everyone a tip: before you even consider this, make sure your debts are paid off. You've got to be debt-free — that's what we did. Like, you had credit cards that went way too big. When you're young and susceptible to, oh, this is great, I might go and spend this, spend that, whatever — it all catches up with you. So we basically got together and —

Brent: So it's not like a refinance of the debt that you had — you consolidated the debt, and then worked out a borrowing capacity and what you could afford. Then you put through your list of pros and cons, nice-to-haves, and worked out a location.

Warren: That was it.

Brent: Then got into the product, the amenity — a two-bedroom, car park — and then you got some advice from a salesperson, or salespeople, along the way that helped you through some of the process. Particularly buying off the plan, it can be tricky, and it's not something you're going to be doing every day. So you have to have trust in the developer, and trust in the salesperson that you're getting the right information.

Warren: We got a lot of feedback with off the plan — a lot of people who had either known people, or friend-of-a-friend kind of thing, who had been burnt. I'm trying to remember, they came out in the late 2010s with the Mascot Towers, and the sinking this and the faulty that, or the Opal Tower and stuff like that. So you only ever hear of this one here or that one there, the odd cases which are negative. But the majority are really positive. The other thing I found really useful, for someone who had no loan experience or anything like that, was the Money Smart website that the government has released, with all their calculators and really simple explainers. [So, Money Smart website.] Yeah, Money Smart, it's a real bonus, really useful. You plug in your information and you can go, boom, okay, be realistic. You set what might change — it gives you that, oh, if interest rates increase 2%, which they did when we were in that planning and saving process, we go, okay, can we make that stretch? Yes, we can. And that made us feel confident.

Drew: That reminds me of when we went to one of the banks. I sat there and said, I want to pressure-test this — put 10% interest on it, I want to see what happens. And we could still barely afford the repayments, but at 10% interest. I mean, it's not likely to happen, but that's how far I went.

Brent: Yeah. So you looked at a lot of the risks involved. [Yeah, you have to be realistic.] You could go to one income if the interest rates do go north, which they have in recent times — but hopefully not 10%.

Warren: I think we'll be — that's our parents' generation.

Drew: Hopefully we're safe with that.

Brent: Drew, I'll ask you this question: a piece of advice you wish you'd been given right at the start of the buying journey?

Drew: Don't just look at the overall figure. The $890k figure — looking at that is pretty scary. So you need to be able to dissect that and go, okay, that's the entire purchase.

Brent: So this is the mortgage you're talking about.

Drew: Yeah. When you look at that, it can be really scary numbers. You go, oh wow, this is huge. You sort of need to break it down a bit.

Brent: Okay. And what does that look like for you? Do you break it down per month?

Drew: We were doing it per day, yeah. When we did it per day and broke it down, it was like, well, this is feasible now. We can work with this number. The big numbers can be really hard to work with if you're not finance-literate. [That's great advice.] And don't be afraid to ask questions — you really have to ask questions. The only thing someone can say to you is no. And if it's a no, you go, well, it's a no for now, but how can I turn that no into a yes? And there always is a way, you've just got to find it. Admittedly, things aren't easy for a lot of people at the moment. But if you're willing to put a little bit away every now and then — even if it's five years' time where you go, okay, I've got 10%, I've got something to work with — that's great. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but sometimes — because it took us three years from the start of construction to getting the keys and moving in — I used to visit the display unit every now and then when I felt a bit stressed, just to remind myself, this is what you're getting, this is what you're working towards. Go and have a look again, and just remind yourself. And yes, I probably drove the sales centre nuts, but honestly, it gave me sanity.

Brent: Good sanity check there.

Drew: So there are ways around it. You've just got to find what gets you through.

Brent: You should be proud of yourselves for making that step. It's a leap of faith at times, but I know it's worked out for you, and you're going from one lily pad to the next — which we'll talk about in a moment. But there were sacrifices you had to make there. You saved $230,000 over a three-year period.

Drew: I still can't believe that, but yes — continue.

Warren: How does that work?

Brent: So can you walk us through that? How did you do it? As I said, on modest incomes — you're not talking half a million dollars a year here. Can you break down the meaningful things you did per day or per week that you said, we can put that aside?

Warren: I think, for us, when we looked at it — look, we have no kids, which is a financial benefit for us, because that can be quite a cost when you're factoring those things in. So we don't have those things to worry about. The way I looked at it was, there are two incomes, and you live off one. So you had to live within your means. We were really lucky through those three years that, due to the circumstances of COVID and whatnot, we had a flatmate join us. Thank you very much to her, because that really lifted the burden. If you have someone who is willing to share the rent, which is what we were doing at the time, it was —

Brent: That was really smart that you did that.

Warren: And it was —

Drew: We gave up our privacy, essentially. We had to share our space.

Brent: Yeah, you gave up space, you gave up privacy — so there was one element there. You gave up Uber Eats, which you were talking about. But you had a budget there and said, okay, we're going to budget off one income, not two, and the rest we're going to save. It also got to a point during that three-year period where the construction took a little longer, your lease had expired, and you were moving in with —

Warren: My parents.

Brent: Your parents. Yeah, your parents.

Drew: And can I say as well, I actually got another job in that time, which did pay more — that was that final kick. I wasn't expecting that, actually, and it turned out really well. So I got a bit of a pay rise out of that job, and more stability as well. That came along in 2022, so just about a year and a bit before we moved in. And I'm still in that position now. But that also helped us turbocharge our savings.

Brent: Yeah. Look, I think you really developed a serious financial muscle, and really stuck to it — which is a real credit to you guys. And there was a comment I've heard previously from you, that the three hard years have and will make the next 10 to 20 years a lot easier. Does that still ring true for you today?

Drew: Yep, definitely.

Warren: Yeah. When we went down the journey, we said, okay, what can we save based on the budget and the income we had? We said, let's aim for 10%, we'll go for the 10% deposit. There was no 5% guarantee thing — all the different options the government has currently got in place, we didn't have any of those. We had HomeBuilder, that was about it. So we said, okay, 10%, that's what we need, that's what everyone's told us we need to get to. We got there, and because things had been delayed, we said, all right, well, let's not just sit and rest on our laurels. Let's keep going. And so we ended up getting to 20%.

Brent: Yeah. Wow.

Warren: And just maintaining that momentum, going through — it literally was, okay, well, we did it yesterday, we can do it tomorrow.

Brent: Yeah. So you made some sacrifices. What sacrifices did you not give up?

Warren: We still did some — well, you couldn't do much. We haven't been able to travel overseas yet, but we've done plenty of domestic travel. And when we do travel, we don't do it in halves — we do enjoy where we stay. So it's those types of things: for you, experiencing parts of the state, and for me, going to places as well where we haven't been. So we've been able to travel together still. Travel, for me — there must have been three or four trips, whether it's long weekends or a week away here or there.

Brent: Some micro-breaks.

Warren: You need to have your breaks. You still need to budget that in — it's got to happen. And Friday night was the treat, that was the treat night. We'd go out, or we'd have Uber Eats in or something. You still have to treat yourself.

Brent: You've got to live, you've got to have a lifestyle. [Still got to have a life.] Blow some steam off at times, and —

Drew: You can't just go through saying, that's it, no more treats, can't do anything, beans and rice all the way. I know people say that a lot, but you need to have a break from the beans and rice.

Warren: Look, and reflect too on what you actually need. For us, when we first met, we had two cars — and you have one car space. So it was kind of like, okay. When my car ended up getting sideswiped while it was parked in the street overnight, it was like, okay, this is the catalyst. Where do we go next? What do we do next? Consolidate.

Brent: So, what do you need, what's nice to have? And you just felt two cars is a luxury — we'll go down to one.

Drew: Yeah. And to this day we've still got one car. I use public transport to get to and from work, Warren takes the car because he's working. [Free parking for me.] And it's a little bit harder to get public transport to your workplace.

Warren: Yeah, off to the northern beaches.

Brent: We've spoken about the journey to get the deposit, the sacrifices you made, and the plans — which I think our listeners are really going to get a lot out of. The disciplines, the selection criteria you were using, the budgeting, and obviously some of the websites and getting advice and asking questions. So I think that's really important. Two years down the track, you're now in Midtown, living there — that's your own home. One, you should be really proud of yourselves. How does it make you feel now?

Drew: Other than proud — I just love walking through the front door every day. I really do, even now, right now. I love coming home, walking through the front door, and knowing —

Brent: Is it a sense of accomplishment?

Drew: Yeah, very much so. To give you an idea — I'm originally from country Victoria. So my parents, when it comes to property, when I told them the cost, the $890k cost, they looked at me and were like, “Oh my god, we only paid $400k for our five-bedroom home.” They couldn't quite understand the prices in Sydney. So when they found out what we were doing and how we did it, I think they were secretly very proud themselves.

Brent: Yeah. Again, I think it's an incredible accomplishment for both of you, and it sounds like it's been a real success — now that you've embarked on your second purchase.

Warren: Yeah, I think we're back on the rollercoaster again, especially with what's happened over the last — and look, out of everybody's control. What's happening overseas and things like that, that influence — I think you've still got to just stick your ground and keep going. There are all these other things, these extraneous variables that'll be happening out of your control. You've just got to focus on what's in your control. So we're like, okay, what can we do? We've got to save — stamp duty's the first thing, right? Save that up. But because we've got the first one, we can go, okay, if we don't make it on the deposit the second time, we'll have a bit of equity, there'll be a bit of a backup.

Drew: We've got that buffer.

Warren: We've got the buffer.

Brent: Yeah. There's a lot of white noise out there about the market, about interest rates, about the geopolitical issues occurring in the world — a lot of reasons why not to buy. But I think you've really hit it on the head, saying we can control the things we can control, and we're happy with that because we've got a risk-minimisation strategy there as well. We can afford it, and we believe property is the right vehicle for us, for wealth creation and shelter over our heads. So I think that's great advice — control what you can control.

Drew: And can I say, there's actually really no right time to buy. If anybody says to you, “Oh, now's the right time to buy” — well, there have been plenty of right times to buy in history. I think, personally, the right time to buy is when you're ready to look at it. That's the right time to buy — not 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when you might have been one year old, or not around. You can't look at it from that perspective. The right time to buy really is when you're ready.

Brent: Drew, I think you've summarised where we are today, particularly for our listeners who might be on that first stepping stone, about to jump onto the first lily pad, saying, “Should I be doing it or shouldn't I?” We've spoken about some great nuggets of advice about budget — go and speak with a financier, pressure-test the financing, write down your selection criteria, what are the pros, what are the cons. Which I think you guys have done really well. The hard work and sacrifices will get you ahead in life, and I think it's testament to both of you that this is occurring, and that you're going onto your next venture into the property ladder — controlling what you can control. There's no better time than now, because you can afford to do it now. Throughout time, people can procrastinate and talk about all the reasons why not to do it, but never focus on the reasons to do it. And I think you've hit the nail on the head perfectly there. I've really appreciated your candidness, particularly your openness about being volatile about where you were at originally, and the lack of experience — then getting the knowledge, and imparting some of that financial muscle and the tactics you've used. Before we go, one bit of advice from each of you for our listeners who are about to start on the property ladder. Warren, I'll start with yourself.

Warren: When you were summing up there, the thing I could think of is — both of our parents, and my parents, bought a block of land in Sydney in 1980. And if we all know our financial history, it was not a fun time to be a property buyer, with all the interest rates and everything going through. But they did it. I think that influence — that saving, that sacrifice — you aren't going to get something for nothing. You have to put in the hard yards. Take your time. If you don't trust someone, ask a question. Just ask the questions — someone will give you the answers. But if you don't trust them, move forward, ask the next question. Ask, ask, ask.

Drew: Okay, two bits of advice from me. One: trust your gut. If at any time it's not sitting with you, don't do it. Just that simple — don't do it. Second bit: if something happens, don't panic. There's no point panicking. If you look at the figures, or you're going to explore the idea of, oh, can I afford an $800,000 property, and you're sitting down with a financier and they bring up everything, and you're just freaking out — just remember, you haven't got the loan yet, and you haven't signed anything yet. Just do your due diligence, and don't panic. Those are the two bits of advice. And the gut feeling — when we put down the first deposit, I was like, yep, this is it.

Warren: You were ready. You were ready within seconds of, “Oh, can I do the deposit?” I had to say, no, no, we've got to go home and have a proper think.

Brent: I think they're great bits of advice you've given myself, but also our listeners today. Thanks for sharing. But also, congratulations — you should be awfully proud, and I'm sure your family are really proud of what you've achieved as well. And I know it's going to be two, three, four rungs in property with time to come. So congratulations, and I look forward to catching up on hopefully another podcast about your second, third, and fourth purchase.

Warren: Definitely.

Drew: Thank you so much.

Brent: Thanks for joining us, guys, appreciate it.

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